Heading toward the final days of the year, the weather turning resolutely nasty, temperatures dipping into the single digits, snow threatening to clog side streets and motorways, ice making commuting a dangerous sport, the sun setting earlier every afternoon, adding the burden of ever shorter and drearier days—Christmas lights suddenly pop up everywhere.

The long autumn darkness that weighed on our spirits becomes the backdrop for bright lights in every shade on the color wheel.

In December, lights blink and twinkle and shimmer, bringing us cheer when the work day ends and we are released into the night. No more mood-dampening darkness; we are bedazzled by trees and bushes festooned with tiny electric stars, street poles decorated with shiny rows of candy-cane red and white, edges of balconies and eaves of houses dripping with brilliant icicles.

When these Christmas lights are taken down in January and placed in storage for another year, the solstice will have passed. The worst will be over and the loveliness of spring will feel within reach. The sky will be lighter when we leave work, and though the winter-weather will worsen, snow will fall more often, temperatures will stay in single digits, the early months of the year, with their gradually lengthening days, will be bearable.

Credit: Martin Beek / CreativeCommons.org

For Christians, the birth of Jesus symbolizes the in-breaking of God’s love, just as it did among an ancient people who, too long trapped in the harshness of Roman domination and the nightmare of the tyrant Herod’s oppression, despaired of goodness and hope.

Many of the Israelites, when love broke into their midst, knew only the life of the subjugated, under the battering ram of a colonial power determined to control them physically and to mould their thoughts, their beliefs, and their ideals. Spirit-crushing poverty was the order of the day, unrelenting misery that we, Westerners, can try to imagine today but which we must fail to understand.

An ethos of meaningless brutality ruled from birth to death. And yet love could not be stopped.

Love that, in the narrative of Jesus’ birth, came in the form of a child, a child who appeared, not at an expected or convenient time, not to a middle-class or settled family.

Love broke through the sordid and violent times of domination in the form of a mother’s love for her child—a love beyond the reach of the most powerful empire the world had yet known.

Love, this story reminds us, can come any time, unbidden, unexpected, and without regard for whether we are ready.

Love this pure, this selfless, this strong, is rare. It is surely the most prized gift in anyone’s life.

Love, in this story, also appears in the more-complex love of a stepfather for his child. Because Joseph’s eyes, like Mary’s, shine with love as he gazes at the newborn Jesus.

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Just as light breaks into and brightens the ever-earlier nights of December, love breaks into and makes bearable the most desperate and dismal of circumstances.

Whether we are Christians or not, blessed light buoys us during these days of dreariness. And blessed love cradles us during days of trial (whether we are the bearer of love or its object).

During this season of light and love, or during any season, may love break into your life like the lights of Christmas. And may you, like the light, be an in-breaking source of love to others.

Are you satisfied with a purely secular approach to the Christmas season? If not, you might consider spending some time reading the New Testament gospels and reflecting on the life and teachings of Jesus that they depict.

Skeptics will resist this suggestion but could soften their stance when they learn that respected thinkers like Thomas Jefferson and Martin Buber (yes, the 20th Century Jewish philosopher!) would have nodded their assent. Both considered the gospels to be sources of immense wisdom. They had no illusion about the human authorship of the Bible; this did not prevent them from engaging it energetically and with seriousness of purpose. In so doing, they testify to its importance. Both adopted unique approaches to Scripture; their approaches offer helpful examples of how we too might to read it.

Although he didn’t consider Jesus to be divine, Thomas Jefferson was inspired by the Biblical Jesus’ message—albeit in its distinctly human dimension. New Testament verses concerning morality and sin met with Jefferson’s approval but the miracles and Jesus’ resurrection struck him as implausible. Jefferson decided to extract the passages reflecting his ideas about Jesus from the four Gospels to create a single, unified gospel. Over a period of several years, he selected passages from six different (hardcopy) Bibles, cut them out (with scissors—yup, the old, old-fashioned way), and pasted them together (with glue) to create his own, integrated gospel. His Bible selection included excerpts from the King James Bible, a Greek Bible, one in Latin, and two more in French. He entitled his cut-and-paste Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.

What follows is the narrative of Jesus’ birth from Jefferson’s Bible. Because this account only appears in the gospel of Luke, Jefferson relied on uniquely on Luke to redact his version of the nativity:

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. Lk 2:1

(And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) Lk 2:2

And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. Lk 2:3

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of David.) Lk 2:4

To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. Lk 2:5

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. Lk 2:6

And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them at the inn. Lk 2:7

And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, Lk 2:21

And when they had performed all things according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth. Lk 2:39

Although this passage doesn’t include the moral teachings so important to Jefferson, it does show that he had no qualms about altering sacred Scripture to make it his own–including the story of Jesus’ birth.

Given when and where he lived, it isn’t surprising that Jefferson considered Jesus, the man, a source of inspiration. However, it is surprising that Martin Buber, best known for his book of Jewish theology, I and Thou, considered Jesus his great brother. Buber found much significance in Jesus’ suffering, his self-doubt and his death. Indeed, Buber wrote:

“From my youth onwards, I have found in Jesus my great brother. That Christianity has regarded and does regard him as God and Saviour has always appeared to me a fact of the highest importance which for his sake and my own, I must endeavor to understand… my own fraternally open relationship with him has grown ever stronger and clearer… For nearly 50 years, the New Testament has been a main concern in my studies.”

In Jesus, Buber found a great son of Israel. He found the genuine Jewish principle manifest in Jesus’ teachings. He also felt a strong kinship to the Jesus depicted in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke—that is to say, a strong kinship for the plain and embodied man grappling with concrete situations.

For Buber, it was this Jesus, the one who, struggling in the depth of the actual moment, found eternity. He had the highest regard for the man who lacked certainty about his nature, who experienced shocks to this certainty, and whose last question was ‘Why’?

If Buber had less affinity for the version of Jesus depicted in the gospel of John, this was because John’s Jesus entered the spiritual realm where he was no longer open to attacks of self-questioning.

Buber ascribed enormous importance to passages like the following one from the Sermon on the Mount (in the gospel of Matthew): “Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors SO THAT you may become the children of your Father in heaven.” Based on his research, Buber held that until Jesus spoke those words, nowhere else had love for others been described as the path to becoming a child of God.

In Buber’s view, Jesus’ statement rose out of Israel’s faith, it implied it, and yet at the same time, supplemented it. It opened the door to all those who really love. Buber celebrated Jesus as the religious leader who challenged human beings, for the first time in our history, to Love our enemies and pray for our persecutors so that we might become what we were meant to be, brothers and sisters to one another.

Should you, like Buber or Jefferson, decide to revisit the Bible during this season of Advent then, like them, you will want to acknowledge the ugly parts of the gospels, or of any other Biblical book for that matter, if that’s what those passages deserve. Neither Buber nor Jefferson approached Scripture with naive reverence. They relied on their analytic and critical skills to winnow “the grain from the chaff.”

Jefferson explained his approach in a letter he wrote to William Short, a Unitarian with whom he corresponded about religious matters during the years he worked to create his personal Gospel. In one of those letters, he said:

“We find in the writings of [Jesus’] biographers matter of two distinct descriptions. First, a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications. Intermixed with these, again, are sublime ideas of the Supreme Being, aphorisms, and precepts of the purest morality and benevolence, sanctioned by a life of humility, innocence, and simplicity of manners, neglect of riches, absence of worldly ambition and honors, with an eloquence and persuasiveness which have not been surpassed.”

If you (re)visit the gospels, why not start with the gospel of Luke? Not only does this gospel contain the story at the core of this season’s Christmas celebration, but it is prized for its literary elegance, its great interest in the poor, the “lost,” women, Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles. Luke’s book has received much praise for what has been called his universalism based on his willingness to be inclusive of a variety of interests and audiences. Some have even speculated a woman wrote this gospel.

Who knows, after reading Luke’s account, you, like Jefferson and Buber, might discover beauty and truth in the Biblical story of Jesus. You might even, in this busy and often spirit-draining time of Advent, find a meaning in Jesus’ birth that’s all your own, enabling you to invite him to the bash you’re throwing in his name. On some level this holiday is universal–there’s something in it for everyone–Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, Christians and atheists.

So go ahead, pick up a Bible and find the gospels. Read a passage. Or two. What is there to lose–except the sinking feeling that Christmas is little more than an opportunity for gift-giving and sweets-eating?

Some claim that Jesus—whose birthday Christians and plenty of non-Christians are preparing to celebrate—never existed.

The people of Jesus’ time displayed no such skepticism, but for those of us who demand empirical evidence, Jesus is mentioned in several important sources (other than the New Testament). According to the New Testament scholars Dennis Duling and Norman Perrin, these references describe Jesus as a “wandering artisan” who traveled primarily in southern Palestine and lived in the early decades of what we now call the Common Era.

The principal, extra-Biblical sources about Jesus are Roman, Jewish and Christian. Works written by the Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius during the early 2nd Century are of interest because they confirm that Christian missionaries arrived in Rome during the timeframe in which Paul wrote his letter to the Romans.

More helpful on the question of Jesus’ existence are the Jewish sources. For example, the historian Josephus (37-100? CE) mentions the execution of James whom he calls “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.” Because Christians preserved Josephus’ works through the centuries by hand-copying them, his references to Jesus are suspect—during the copying process, phrases were probably altered or even added to support Christian claims. However, most scholars agree that Josephus’ brief remark concerning James came from Josephus himself.

Another, longer passage from Josephus is more questionable. Phrases unlikely to have been written by a Jewish author were woven into the original. The majority of scholars, however, are of the opinion that this passage was not entirely fabricated.

Here it is, edited to remove the phrases Christian copyists may have added:

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. And the time of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.

Josephus, then, confirms the existence of Jesus who, as Duling and Perrin summarized, “gathered followers, taught, worked miracles, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate.”

This should put to rest the most skeptical of skeptics’ questions about whether Jesus of Nazareth actually lived. A birthday bash celebrating his coming into the world is, quite simply, based on fact.

Granted, questions about the actual day and year remain. No one knows exactly on what day Jesus was born. On this point, the sources are silent.

But, really, does it matter whether we’ve got the right date?

Even if you’re a Christmas-celebrating non-Christian, given the short, dark days of winter, isn’t a festive time of twinkling-lights and sweets-galore and family-time perfect right now?

All things considered, if we’re going to celebrate Jesus’ birthday, December 25 seems as good a day as any.